Women in Greek Tragedy

This work springs from a feminist inquiry into the role of women in Ancient Greece. The author confronts the paradox that while women were nearly invisible in public life, they played a very prominent part on the tragic stage. The book offers a thorough examination of the tragic drama and defines this medium, in an anthropological sense, as a "symbolic phenomenon," concluding that the phenomenon presents the social order and its basic institutions. The special interest of this study lies in its theoretical orientation. Drawing extensively on anthropological literature on symbolism as well as on Aristotle's Poetics, the author offers a model for analysis. Her starting point is the emotional or "tragic" workings of tragic drama, involving an inversion of the symbolic or world order. The method is then applied to eight dramas staging prominent women, providing insights which will prove useful to the study of Greek tragedy in general.